Crenshaw's Books & Decks

Alone Forever is a short book containing a selection of auto-biographic self-deprecating comic strips by Liz Prince about her dating life, or lack of, and how she is, lives and relates to people, men (and cats) in general.

Liz is a bit of tomboy in ways of relating, always hanging out with boys, and dresses very boyishly. Despite being taken for a lesbian often, she is very much straight and looking for love. She is a bit neurotic, vengeful, confused, loving, loyal, funny, nerdy, and magnetically attracted to cute bearded guys wearing strange bands T-shirts. The comic strips depict how she relates to the opposite sex, how she flirts, and how she dates. My favourite pages are those devoted to the narration of the dates she got with guys she met through the dating site OK Cupid. 

The drawing style is a bit sketchy, even childish, very charming, very e-zine in a way. Still, some of her images are really beautiful and great.The strips are very short, the longest occupies a page, so the degree in which they engage the reader varies. I found myself reading out loud at some of the strips, or just feeling in love with the version of Liz that Liz has created for the reader.

I recently read Jeff Brown's "Clumsy", and I found that Liz's and Jeff's have very similar books and ways of narrating. Although they are the flip side of the coin and of each other, they share the fact that they are not archetypal man and woman in their romantic relationships.